


The Unforeseen Future

by athena_crikey



Category: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: AU, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Time Skips, male!sheik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime in the last seven years Zelda passed away silently, a tiny mind withered into nothing but colourless memories, and Sheik does not have the power to turn back time. Post-game AU considering two boys whose childhoods were sacrificed for a country that only noticed the results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Link, give me the Ocarina of Time. As a sage, I can return you to your original time,” she says, looking out over the destruction Ganondorf left behind, a world razed and wasted. A future none of Hyrule wanted, a future so many did not live to see. A future she is meant to change, now. “Now go back to your home… where you’re supposed to be, the way you’re supposed to be.”

But the Ocarina feels cold and lifeless in her hands as it never did before, an empty body whose soul is gone. The Ocarina is nothing but a conduit, an amplifier of the Chosen one’s will. For Link, it played with strength and determination; for the young Princess Zelda, it played with sweetness and hope. But as she puts it to her lips now she feels no tingle of acceptance or welcoming, and the tune that emerges contains no power.

The world doesn’t turn, and when the thin notes of the Song of Time fade, they are still standing on the ruined battlefield atop a scarred, sickened kingdom. Trapped in the future that should never have been.

  
***  


Impa is proud of her, and that’s the worst part. Proud of this doll with long silky hair and smooth-skinned hands, dressed in silks and satins and jewels. Proud of the peace she fought for not with weapons but with binding magics, not with her own hands but the coerced strength of another.

Proud, despite her failure with the Ocarina, of the victory a puppet achieved in a day rather than the burden the puppet master shouldered for seven years. Oh, all of Hyrule is proud, but Impa alone should know better. 

Embroidered slippers patter over white marble flagstaff, washed clean of seven years’ worth of dust and grime by rejoicing servants only hours ago. The whole of Hyrule is celebrating the return of their princess, the victory of good over evil and the arrival of long-awaited peace. They have already burnt Ganondorf’s trophies and devices, and reinstated the Triforce to the halls of the palace in honour of Zelda’s homecoming. 

Blue eyes stare at blue eyes in a gilt-framed mirror, and the mind behind them sees the truth that no one, not even Impa has realised. The truth the Ocarina confirmed: Princess Zelda has not returned to Hyrule, has not come home to lead her people to peace and prosperity. Nor will she. The Ocarina does not lie; in searching for Zelda it found only an empty shell. And that is proof incontrovertible. 

Princess Zelda is dead. 

She has no grave, there is no body wrapped in perfumed winding sheets, no one marked the second she died. But sometime in the last seven years she passed away silently, a tiny mind withered into nothing but colourless memories. And now the body that was hers feels unnatural, feels like a betrayal as it moves and senses and reacts in a hundred ways that are wrong, each tiny mistake like a spider over her skin: creeping and nauseating. 

In this doll-house room, all velvet and stained glass and gems, it is a cage within a cage. Princess Zelda is both a prisoner and a prison, and for one who has spent seven years as the wind, unanchored and uncatchable, that is _suffocating_. Is hemp wrapped around the throat, is sand closing overhead, is water crushing down dark and heavy. 

The window breaks with a soft, musical tinkle, letting cool air into the stuffy room. But it’s not Princess Zelda who vaults over the windowsill.

  
***  


The night air used to be fragrant in Princess Zelda’s courtyard, sweetened by the herbs planted by the princess’s tiny hands and the clear water of the fountain. But Ganondorf had no use for flowers and herbs, and now the garden is nothing but scraggly weeds and the fountain is dry.

Sheik sits on the rim of the fountain’s pool, staring up at the dark sky far above. He has never seen it like this before, bordered by the tall towers of the castle, so many of the stars hidden behind stone battlements. Like an inverted map, it frames Hyrule’s territory just as clearly as inked borders and landmarks. It made little sense to Princess Zelda, who went to bed with the waking of the first stars, but the sky is the only guide Sheik has ever had. He marks his position by the tiny pinpricks now, sears it into his memory, but somehow the label “home” won’t stay affixed.

Near the entrance to the garden there’s a quiet noise, the sound of soft-soled shoes in grass, and Sheik stiffens. But Hyrule Castle at least is safe, even if the town is still haunted by Ganondorf’s ReDead. 

Sheik’s sharp eyes cut through the veil of darkness, and he makes out a form in a dark tunic with white at the throat and legs. Link, walking alone now for the first time in – days? Months? Years? Sheik has no sense of the Hero’s perception of time. 

“Sheik?” The Hero of Time sounds confused. He crosses over the dead grass, steps from the wasted earth onto the weedy paving stones surrounding the fountain. “I thought you – aren’t _you_ Zelda, now? Princess Zelda, I mean,” he adds, belatedly, with a contrition Sheik doesn’t care for.

“I am supposed to be,” he says, with a candidness that makes him wary, rubs him against the grain. “But after seven years as a Sheikah it is not so easy to become a Hylian princess. I am not used to dresses and silks and crowns. Nor to magics and watching battle from afar.” He bows low, an etiquette completely foreign to a princess but a hallmark of the Sheikah. “I am sorry I could not be of more help to you, Hero. But once captured by Ganondorf, I had little choice – it would have wasted too much magic to return to Sheik.”

“I – that’s alright. I mean, I didn’t expect you to. I fought the temples all through on my own; I was ready for it.” Link, as ever, sounds confident, and just slightly oblivious. Sheik shakes his head slowly.

“It isn’t alright. I have placed many great burdens on you, and now I find I cannot pay the reparations I had intended to. Zelda is lost to me, and I can no longer turn back time. It is ironic: I sought to erase the damage caused by Ganondorf, but it is that damage that prevents me from doing so.” He finishes in a softer tone, speaking more to himself than Link. 

There is silence for a moment, the ruined garden empty and dead around them. Then: “But you are Zelda – you showed me.” He sounds so confused, like a child trying to make sense of an adult’s problem. Apt.

“Seven years ago, Zelda fled the Castle and Impa taught her – me – to use my magic to hide as a Sheikah boy. I was hardly seven, the same age as you were when you took hold of the Master Sword. We were both very young, Hero. In the intervening years you slept, but I trained to become a warrior, to lock away any memory or trait of Princess Zelda that might betray me to Ganondorf and be nothing but Sheik.” Sheik pulls his feet up beneath him, perches high and perilous. 

“But now I find I carried out my task too well: I have forgotten Zelda – forgotten a part of myself. The Princess you saw was a mask, the mask I was taught Hyrule needed. But they do not want a mask, and they do not want a Sheikah: they want a Princess.” He fists his hands tightly, taking comfort in the calloused skin, in the strength there. He has not lost everything. 

Link is staring at him, moonlight marking a tiny scythe in his eyes. “So you’re not really the Princess? Princess Zelda is gone?”

“I have her memories, those I haven’t forgotten, and her magic. But her essence – her thoughts and feelings and reactions – that has disappeared, or perhaps been overwritten.” The thought comes to him for the first time: Zelda is not dead but murdered, and Sheik’s hands red. He shudders, tastes bile at the back of his throat. 

“Then we’re the same, you and me,” says Link, almost excited. Sheik blinks, but Link doesn’t notice his confusion. He flops down on the barren earth beside the side of the fountain, near Sheik’s feet. 

“I’m not what I look like, either. I wish I was – everyone wants me to be. They all expect me to be. I’m grown-up now, big and strong, and everyone calls me Hero – _you_ call me Hero, Sheik. But,” he lowers his voice, shrinking down and wrapping his arms around his knees, “I’m _not_. Inside, I’m still little. Maybe not as little as when I was seven; I feel kind of different. Kind of… smarter, or, I don’t know… I see things differently.”

“I understand,” says Sheik, gravely. Deception comes easily to Sheikah, even more so when it’s needed.

“Navi helped me. She helped me _so much_ ; she knew I was just a kid inside but she stayed anyway and she taught me stuff I needed to know – like what weapons to use and what to say and how to act. But now she’s g-gone,” he stops abruptly, voice cutting out for a moment. “I don’t know what to do,” he finishes, in a whisper. “I wish she would come back.”

Sheik wants to reach out to him, wants to lay his bound fingers on the boy’s shoulders and take some of his pain into himself, as Zelda would have. But he is not Zelda, and he has too much pain of his own. “I am sorry. In her youth and panic Zelda – I – acted rashly. I had the right, perhaps, to consent to my own fate. But none at all to seal yours. My decisions were made with a child’s naivety and ignorance, and the consequences are irreparable. If I could have taken the burden on myself, I would have. But that’s little comfort,” he says again, head hung and eyes closed. But there is no absolution to be had in words. 

Link shakes his head. “It wasn’t your fault. You helped. You always helped, even when it put you in danger. And now everyone’s celebrating Princess Zelda, when really it was you.” He swivels about, cheek up against the fountain’s edge. “What’re you going to do? Run away? You could; you’re the fastest person I know.”

Sheik smiles for the first time that night. “Part of me wishes I could. But Hyrule needs me – needs Princess Zelda. The country is too unstable for her to disappear again. I will have to learn to be a princess, just as I once learned to be a Sheikah. Although I think it will be much harder now, than when I was so young.” Maybe not even possible. But tonight’s not a night to think of impossibilities. “And you? Will you return to the Kokiri forest?”

“Saria asked me to come back. I don’t have anywhere else to go. But it’s not my home. I know that now. I’m not a Kokiri – I never was. I don’t belong there. No one grows up there, and… I think I need to.”

His quiet determination to become something he shouldn’t have to – to become something he isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be yet, makes Shiek’s chest ache. All the more so because he is right. He looks down gravely at Link, putting as much warmth into his tone as he can permit himself to. “You will always have a home, and a welcome, here in Hyrule. There are schools, or will be soon, and apprenticeships.”

“I’d like to see Saria first. And maybe the other sages. After that… I don’t know. Maybe this is a good place to be.” He shrugs, not indifferent, just vastly uncertain. 

“You don’t need to decide tonight. We have time.” He intends it to be a comfort, but his voice betrays him and taints the words with bitterness. He shakes his head and stands. “I will give you any aid I can, Hero. No – Link,” he corrects. 

Link looks up at him, and his smile at the sound of his name is wide enough that even in the darkness Sheik can see it clearly. “Thanks, Sheik!” 

Sheik bows again, a smaller incline of his head, and then bends his knees. Flipping up to one of the overhanging gargoyles is simplicity itself, and from there the roof is just a jump away. He’s gone before Link’s registered his intentions. Habits are one of the few comforts he has left.


	2. Chapter 2

_Four Years Later_

Link returns from his journey to find Hyrule preparing for a festival. The streets are lined with flags and banners, the paving stones have been swept until they gleam, and great sheaves of flowers and greenery have been tied to posts and window frames throughout Castle Town. The town, and by extension the land, is preparing to celebrate Princess Zelda’s coming of age. 

Link stables Epona and rubs her down, making sure she has enough feed and then dusting off his clothes before entering the castle. Nothing much has changed here; four years of peace have seen an end to the days when destroyed art and stonework were being replaced every other week. The heart of Hyrule, at least, has returned to its former glory. 

Link heads straight for the audience chamber and seeks admittance. There isn’t, of course, any question of denying him. Once inside the massive cathedral-like room, he slips into the shadows near the back wall, keeping well behind the small crowd. And finds himself staring. 

Even from across the room, he is shocked by the change he sees in Zelda. Her weariness is apparent in the grey of her face and the dullness of her eyes. She sits unmoving on the throne like a sawdust-filled puppet, only her eyes shifting to follow her addressers. Her gloved hands, resting on the arms of the throne, are clenched over the smooth wood. And yet he can hear the people nearby whispering of her poise and regality, of how queenly she looks sitting there on high, and knows she is just as trapped as she was when he left.

Link ghosts out of the audience hall before the end of the session, navigating through the castle with ease to a garden looking up at the raised cloister Zelda will have to pass to reach her chambers. It is a warm afternoon and he has no trouble sitting quietly against sun-baked stone for an hour, waiting for her to appear. The Kokiri gave some of their precious plant cuttings to Hyrule after Ganondorf’s defeat and he can smell them here; the scent is bittersweet, the reminder of a home where he no longer belongs.

Although Link is sitting waiting for her, when Zelda finally appears, he is so taken aback that he forgets his intention to join her – that, in fact, he freezes completely there on the green grass.

Zelda makes her way alone along the long corridor like a crone, bent-backed and hobbling. Her arm is thrown up against the wall and she leans heavily on its support as she shuffles along. She passes out of his view before he can break out of the ice that holds him, and he stares at the empty corridor for several seconds afterwards wondering if it could have been a dream, a hallucination, an illusion. But no imagination, his or any other’s, could have called up that image. 

Link climbs a vine-covered trellis up to the shadowed cloister and runs along it, then up the short flight of stairs to Zelda’s heavy oak door. He knocks loudly, unable to disguise the urgency he feels. “Princess? Sheik? It’s me.”

There’s a soft noise from the inside, not a permission but not a denial either. It’s enough for Link, who turns the handle and steps hurriedly inside. 

Zelda is on her hands and knees beside the door, breathing hard, the veil of her hair masking her face. Before Link can say anything she is gone, and Sheik is there in her place. He sits up slowly, falteringly, like an old man. His face, what little of it Link can see, is less wane than Zelda’s, but there are dark smudges under his eyes and his skin too is an ugly grey. Link drops to his knees to help him, but Sheik waves him away.

“Welcome back, Link,” he says, voice roughened as if by sandpaper. “Hyrule will be pleased her hero has returned.”

“My God, Sheik, what’s happened to you? You look –” He reaches out again as Sheik makes to stand; this time his offer is accepted and he helps Sheik to his feet. Once there Sheik pulls away and strides over to a sideboard holding a pitcher and glasses. He pours one for himself – something clear, probably water – and drains it in one long swallow.

“You have good timing,” he says, replacing the glass and turning to face Link. “You return in good time for the festivities. We are to celebrate Zelda’s coming of age with a ball – the first since Ganondorf’s defeat.”

“Dammit, Sheik, what –”

“I heard you the first time,” interrupts Sheik, sharply. And then, relaxing, “Sometimes, it’s good to speak of pleasant things. The Gods know it’s a rare enough opportunity for me,” he adds, pinching the bridge of his nose. Zelda looked ill, as though it was all she could do not to be sick. But Sheik looks simply drained, exhausted.

“I’m sorry. I’m just – you look awful.”

“I see you didn’t pick up any manners on your trip,” says Sheik, but there’s a smile in his voice. He moves to a pair of tall-backed armless chairs, perfect for a woman in a full dress, and sits. His grace at least remains, and that soothes the ache of fear in Link’s chest. “In any case, it’s true. My stamina is running out. I can endure less and less time as Zelda, but constantly changing to Sheik and back is draining my strength.” 

Link moves to stand behind the chair facing Sheik, grips its back in his hands. “Sheik – you’ve got to admit this isn’t working.”

Sheik shrugs lithely, spreads his hands. “I admit it. There. What has that helped?” he asks, a terse edge to his voice. 

“If you’re so determined that it has to be Zelda who rules Hyrule, how does killing yourself help?”

“Once Hyrule is safe again, then perhaps –”

“It’s safe enough now!” Link slams his hands down on the back of the chair so hard the wood creaks alarmingly. “Castle Town is open even at night, the Well’s darkness is defeated, most of the spawning grounds of Ganondorf’s monsters have been destroyed. Hyrule is safer than it’s been in eleven years.”

“And without Zelda at the throne, without a monarch, how long will that last?”

“How will it be better if you collapse in a month, six months, a year? How could that time possibly be worth your health, or your life?” He throws aside the chair, letting it clatter to the floor, and strides to stand directly in front of Sheik. “I don’t know why you’ve been so stubborn all this time, or how you’ve kept your resolve. But give it up, Sheik. Please. Rule as yourself, or give up the throne. But stop doing this. It’s not worth it.”

“You have no people of your own, Hero,” snaps Sheik, red eyes bright and furious. “You have no right to judge their worth.” He stands, and walks firmly over to the door. Opens it. “I am tired.”

Link stares at him for a moment, then shakes his head and strides out of the room. The door is closed firmly behind him.

  
***

Sheik spends the two days before the ball as himself, much to Impa’s frustration and even fury. But he agreed to the ball in the first place against any desire of his own, and so holds a high card. She eventually stops trying to convince him to retake Zelda’s form, but doesn’t bother to hide her displeasure on her short visits to his chambers to sort out last-minute details.

There really is no reason for him to take Zelda’s form – the gown is finished and ready, along with all the cumbersome accessories that go along with it. The castle is in a bustle of preparations and no councils or audiences are being held. And all foreign dignitaries are arriving before the ball and will be greated by Hyrule’s small diplomatic corps.

He sits in the window seat staring down at the gardens below, back straight against the cold stone and knees pulled up towards his chest. He is full of nervous energy, bones shaking with it, muscles humming, and more than anything else he just wants to leave the castle and cleanse the monsters that still lurk in Hyrule’s shadows. But, much as he does not want to attend the ball, his responsibilities keep him from leave the castle right before the largest celebration Hyrule has held in eleven years. 

There’s a knock on the door, Impa’s knock. She enters without waiting for permission, as always. Walks into the centre of the room and stops, like a guard reporting. He looks over at her, silently inquisitive. 

“Your first dance partner has yet to be decided, Princess.”

He disguises the flinch at the title well, and holds back the sulky impulse to shrug. “Ask the Hero of Time if he would oblige. If not, it doesn’t matter.”

Impa crosses her arms. “It’s a great honour, and a sign of significant favour. It absolutely matters, Princess.”

“Then if Link refuses, choose whoever you think most worthy of my favour. But as he is the only one of them I trust, any other would be an unstated falsehood.” He looks back to the window. Impa leaves the room without a sound, only the door latch’s clicking speaking of her departure. 

Time passes; below some of the castle maids run out to pick flowers and then run in again in a flurry of skirts and aprons, and a chicken gets loose in the vegetable garden. 

Impa returns, looking somewhat frayed. “I have spoken with Link; he has agreed. I might add that it took some convincing – have you argued? He’s only been back for a day.”

“After a manner of speaking. He’ll get over it. Or he won’t. I’m tired of compromises.” No – more than that. He is simply tired. Tired of arguing to no avail, tired of being what he is not, tired of defending his right to be what he is. 

Impa raises an ironic eyebrow, staring at him. He stares back, impassive. Eventually she closes her eyes and turns. “Why must you push yourself away?” she asks, voice full of frustration.

“Because both of you want me to be what my duty to Hyrule won’t allow of me. And I hate it as much as you, but you are not the one to face the consequences of this choice and its sour options.”

“Princess, there are no options here, only one choice which you delay making. And –”

He is tensing, like a plant hardening under frost, ready to shatter. “Not today, Impa. Not before the ball.”

“Zelda –”

“Enough! Please,” he adds, letting out his breath and relaxing. 

“Very well. But when it is over, this matter will have to be settled. You will have reached adulthood, and after the ball when you are crowned as Queen you will not be able to continue this double life. Especially if you are to have a consort.”

Sheik bites his tongue, and after a moment Impa bows and leaves. Only after she is gone does he slam his fist into the wall so hard it aches hours later.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having now seen OoT played through for the second time, I've realised that of course there is no Hyrule Castle remaining post-game. So I suppose this AU becomes just a little more AU and assumes part of the main castle survived the final battle.

Princess Zelda opens her own ball with the Hero of Time, both their right hands ungloved to show the faint glimmer of the Triforce pieces there. Link isn’t much of a dancer, but neither is she. She has the better part of it – her long silk dress hides at least some of her awkward missteps. Link doesn’t seem bothered by either of their mistakes, but then self-consciousness was never a flaw of his. 

He makes very small, meaningless talk, and watches her so closely that she begins to wonder if she hasn’t put on enough make-up, if already she’s showing signs of the discomfort that’s making her back molars grind together. But he says nothing, and after they move apart at the end of the first dance she forgets about it for a while. 

Time passes very slowly. The room heats up quickly, even with large doors opening out onto wide balconies decorated with potted plants and finely-wrought iron screens. Zelda has rarely danced, is rarely touched at all by others, and even the press of hands against hers is making her skin creep. Touches on her back or the brush of legs against hers knots her stomach. Her handkerchief is damp with sweat, as are her thin undergarments, sticking to her like a second skin and constantly reminding her of the wrongness of this body that she’s learned to ignore by sitting stiffly in the regular court dresses. 

She dances with a dozen meaningless faces, forcing out shallow words through her tight throat and smiling at poor witticisms. And there is always a crowd of men waiting for her hand at the end of each dance, vying for her attention with clean smiles and crisp bows. 

Eventually, as if by miracle, one of the musicians breaks a string and the orchestra pauses. Zelda excuses herself from her current nameless partner and flees out into the cool night air, slipping between the bushy fronds of the plants and the sheltering screens to reach the edge of the balcony. The wind is refreshing, its touch far more welcome than that of anyone in the ballroom, and leaning out into it she tries to find her calm.

“Princess Zelda?”

Zelda turns, startled as Sheik never would have been, to see some tall dark young man standing behind her looking surprised but pleased by his discovery. She cannot remember his name, and so smiles silently instead.

“Are you enjoying the ball?” he asks, moving to stand beside her and look out over the balcony.

“Very much so. Hyrule has much to celebrate,” she says, and hopes it does not sound facile. If it does, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Not the least its beautiful princess. I hope that Hyrule, and you, will remain in closer contact with the many kingdoms gathered here.”

“That is our hope as well. I am sorry, Prince – Zarif, but –”

He turns, looking down at her and taking her naked hand in his; the touch of it is like raw meat slithering against her skin. “Princess, everyone here has much to offer, but if there is any service I could render –”

She steps back, pulling her hand away and stiffening. There is bile rising in her throat now, sweat breaking out across her back like a sheet of grease. She fights it down desperately – it is just in her head. Just in her head. “I am sorry,” she says again, more firmly. “but with your kindness, I would like a little time to rest. It has been a long night.”

Zarif flushes, but bows. “Of course. Apologies.” He opens his mouth to say more, but decides against it and disappears away towards the light and sound of the ballroom. Relief blossoms sharp and sudden as she turns away. She’s shaking, she realises, and catches her weight with her arm against the balcony. This body does not have Sheik’s strength, and all she can do is lock her joint and let it take her weight. 

“Princess?”

Zelda’s eyes flash open, but this time she recognizes the voice. Link is standing beside her; he looks almost angry, she thinks, but the light is poor and she doesn’t have much attention to spare.

“Get me a drink, please. Something with a lot of ice, and not much alcohol.”

He hesitates, but then leaves. She wipes the sweat from her neck and temples, takes deep breaths of the fresh air.

Link is back in surprisingly good time, holding a tall glass in each hand. He hands her one; she takes it and drains the liquid from it, ice bumping up against her teeth. The cold runs to her head and sets it aching, but it’s far better than creeping flesh or bile in her throat. She lays the glass down on the stone railing. 

“Thank you.”

“You look –”

“Awful?” suggests Zelda quickly, picking up his earlier statement.

He shakes his head, seriously. “Maybe just a bit queasy. But it’s worse. Isn’t it?”

Zelda wipes the condensation from the tips of her fingers with her handkerchief. Then, leaning forwards slightly, she presses her hand against Link’s cheek. Runs it down to cup his jaw, gentle as snowfall, and then lets it drop away. The almost painful twist in her heart is familiar, but the rest of her reactions from the feel of his skin under her fingers to the curl low in her stomach feels just as sickeningly wrong as ever. 

She turns away to look out unseeingly at the dark country below, Link staring at her in poorly-disguised shock. It takes both arms to brace her now, to carry her through the sudden violent storm of futile rage and helplessness suddenly railing inside her. 

“Worse?” she says at last, bitterly. “Yes, it is. You were right. This cannot go on. I know it now. I cannot live in a form that can’t even endure the touch of one it – it cares for.” She tightens her hand over the balcony rail, so hard she can at last feel the bruise Sheik left on his days ago. “But still, I do not know what to do.” Hyrule needs her – that is undeniable. And Impa, the one person who could stop her, will not accept this. 

“Drink this.”

Zelda glances at the offered glass, then at Link. Raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think alcohol will solve my problems.”

Link gives her an exasperated look “There isn’t any in it. What do you take me for?” He pushes at her. “It’s just fruit juice.”

She sighs. “Thank you, Link.” She drains the second glass, the icy cool numbing at least some of her discomfort. “Very well. Find Impa. Tell her I must leave – we must close the ball. Surely it must be nearly time anyway. Tell her anything – I’m exhausted, sick, drunk. Whatever it takes.” She is sounding more and more like Sheik, losing Zelda’s polite distance; not the best course at a ball attended by most of the ruling families within two weeks’ travel. 

Link ghosts away and she stands waiting. Another man drifts closer, but Zelda has no more patience – it is simplicity itself to let her magic drape a dark cloak over her so that she blends perfectly into the shadows. 

Eventually Link returns, looking impassive, with Impa, looking somewhere between concerned and irritated. Zelda lets the curtain of darkness drop, and the irritation fades from her face as she takes in Zelda’s appearance. 

“I will have the last dance announced. You will be the first to leave – Link, please escort the Princess out; her maids will meet her there.”

Link nods silently; Zelda simply watches. Impa bows and disappears, and presently the music shifts. Zelda sets her jaw, and takes Link’s arm. For better or worse, it will all be over soon.

  
***

Link is somewhat surprised when he doesn’t hear from Sheik the day after the ball. But the rest of the castle is still raving of the Princess’s triumph, her beauty and poise and grace, so he supposes it makes sense that Sheik would rather keep to his room. But when by the third day after the ball he still hasn’t seen or heard from him, Link takes the garden route to the cloisters, and follows the silent corridor to Zelda’s chambers.

There are two guards directly outside her door, spears in hand, standing at attention. There haven’t been any this near to her since the early days after Ganondorf’s fall, when there were many dangers still rife in the kingdom. He stops, nonplussed, and then sees them straighten slightly from their already rigid attention. He turns to find Impa stepping out from the shadows behind him, her movements silent as ever.

“Hero. I’ve been looking for you.” 

“I’ve come to see – Zelda,” he says, almost tripping over his tongue; it is Sheik he has come to see, Sheik who he hopes is waiting, free of the burden of his former shape. “She seemed ill…”

Impa frowns. “She has overburdened herself. She requires rest – and no interruptions.”

“And is she… herself?” asks Link, slowly. Impa’s frown deepens, red eyes becoming shadowed. 

“Very much so,” she replies, frostily. 

Impa is one of the seven great sages, and an old friend. More than that, she is all the family Sheik has left. He wouldn’t cross her for nearly anything. But Sheik’s wellbeing is above price. 

“Isn’t that the problem?” he asks, settling his weight low and staring back without flinching. He has faced every monster the realm had to offer, and defeated them all. He will not back down, not even when faced with a friend.

“The only problem is that the princess refuses to commit herself to her duties. She needs no encouragement.”

Link bristles. “What if it’s her diligence that has carried her this far? That, and only that? She’s done everything that was asked of her, and more. She’s been what you – what Hyrule wanted. And it’s killing her. Impa, you need –”

“Enough! Enough treason. Enough lies. Enough _words_. She is Zelda, soon to be Queen, of Hyrule. She returned from the shadows after seven long years, and she will never set foot in them again.”

“And if after all those years only a shadow remained?” demands Link. For a split second he sees Impa’s agony, her despair and horror. And then it is gone, and only rage remains. 

“She. Is. Here. She is here _now_ , and she will remain.” She is breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling with the force of her emotion. “I ask you to leave, Hero,” she says, her hand resting on her sword pommel; it is no request. 

Link stands still for a moment. Even now he misses Navi, misses her advice and guidance at a time like this. He could so easily go through Impa; rescue Sheik as the Sheikah used to rescue him and take him from this parasite of a kingdom. 

But he knows Sheik would never walk out over the bodies of his people. Would spend the last of Zelda’s life force healing them. 

So he turns and walks away.


	4. Chapter 4

Link’s quest to free Hyrule taught him daring and courage; the past four years have brought him patience. Even Impa sleeps.

He waits, nestled in the shadows of a crenellation, as the moon drifts across the sky and down towards the welcoming reach of the horizon. Eventually, when the owls return to their perches and down in the stables the green-eyed cats give up their hunts, he catches a trace of her sharp shadow whisking across the walkway leading from Zelda’s turreted room. At the door to the tower two burning beacons crackle ceaselessly, flames washing red and orange light over the wood behind. 

But he won’t be using the door.

It takes only a second to longshot to the window ledge, and from there a thin dagger makes quick work of the latch. Link pushes the heavy glass windows open and steps down onto the flagstones. 

Zelda’s room is circular, the walls wide and hung with the ruling family’s standards. A sumptuous bed sits in the middle of a lush carpet, its hangings intricate tapestries depicting the history of Hyrule. 

In this splendid bed lies a wasted young woman – the leader of this rich country – her eyes sunken and her skin waxen. Her long blonde hair is dull as burnished brass, her wrists and fingers only as wide as the bone below the translucent skin. She doesn’t open her eyes.

As Link’s heart twists as he stands in the cool breeze on the windowsill, staring across at the ruin of the princess. She looks inches from death, her chest struggling to rise and fall with the waning beat of her life. In even his darkest imaginings, he hadn’t foreseen this, hadn’t predicted such a collapse. He feels suddenly very angry, the kind of anger that sears flesh and scorches bones, so that even after it’s gone its shadow remains. He pushes it down with gritted teeth, nails digging into his palms. 

“Sheik?” he intones in a low voice, calling to the face beneath the mask as he steps into the room and passes silent as a shadow over the thick blue carpet. The face he alone seems to value. “Sheik?”

Zelda’s blue eyes open. She looks over to him and slowly the corners of her mouth twitch upwards. “Link.” Her voice is the rasp of leather over stone, barely intelligible.

“I’m taking you with me,” he says, wrapping her blankets around her. “Don’t argue. You can’t stop me.”

“No,” sighs Zelda. She sounds almost relieved.

Link picks her up, blankets and all, and returns to the window. “You’ll never be back here. Not as her,” he says, pausing. It is after all Zelda’s home, the room she was raised in, the room where she last felt her parents’ love – the love he’s never known.

Zelda’s eyes slide closed. “Go. Zelda is dead. You cannot harm a ghost.”

Link goes.

  
***

After a wealth of practice sneaking into the castle grounds provided no difficulty; sneaking out doesn’t either, even with Zelda in his arms. She is feather-light and silent, cocooned gently in her bedclothes. Her stillness feeds his anger, but he’s used enough to it now to hide it from his face. He passes silently by the guards into the cool green fields beyond.

Epona is waiting for him and he mounts carefully, Zelda before him, her head resting on his shoulder. Her long silken hair gleams like tempered steel in the moonlight; he wonders whether it is softer than Sheik’s, what it would feel like to run his hands through it. He doesn’t dare. And truthfully, he doesn’t want to. Zelda has always been a statue on a pedestal, something to be gazed upon and admired, but never coveted or touched. He spares those feelings for Sheik, who is far more real. 

Epona walks slowly, sensing his mood and the fragility of his burden; she takes him across Hyrule field, through Kokiri Forest and into the Sacred Forest Meadow at a gentle pace as the moon drifts by overhead. He leaves her by the entrance to the fairy fountain and drops carefully down into its holy glow.

There are more than a dozen fairies skimming over the surface of water, their lights reflecting on its ripples. He carefully pulls the covers from around Zelda and takes her into the water, walking until he’s at the centre and then lowering her into it. 

Here in the sacred light, she looks once again beautiful. Her skin has a honey warmth, her hair a golden sheen. But her eyes when they open are tired, and she struggles to raise a hand. The water hasn’t healed her. “The fairies can close wounds and mend broken bones, but they can’t cure illness, nor a sickened heart. Else there would be no death in this world, and no meaning to life,” she whispers.

“Then how – ” begins Link, but he feels a sudden surge of magic. There’s a sound like wind rustling the pages of a book and long tendrils of light envelop Zelda like a rain of shooting stars. When the light fades it is Sheik in his arms, looking tired and wan.

“Now, perhaps, I may heal,” he says, and sighs. Link’s heart lurches against his chest – he has never been so close to Sheik, scarcely ever brushed against him. To find himself holding the Sheikah, cradling him… His anger vanishes, forgotten in the face of his shock. He turns abruptly and hurries out of the water, puts Sheik down on the ground at the water’s edge and backs away, heart hammering in his chest. 

Sheik will be safe here. But this cannot be a permanent home; the magic of the fairies is the magic of life, but those who live too long in its aura forget how to eat and drink, and eventually how to breathe. 

Leaving Sheik to rest, Link returns to the Sacred Forest Meadow. He’s sure by now Saria will have noticed him arrive. 

Sure enough, in the first light of dawn she’s sitting beneath the largest tree outside the temple, kicking her feet as she waits. Her face lights up when she sees him and she hops up, hurrying forward. “Link! I knew you’d come.”

“I need your help,” he says; she cants her head to the side, hair leaf-green in the early morning sun.

“Help? With what?”

“I need somewhere safe to keep a friend. Safe even from Hyrule.”

Saria’s brow furrows. “You’re hiding from Zelda?”

“From her people,” he amends. “Please. It’s important. I need somewhere secret, somewhere safe.”

Saria shifts her weight slowly from side to side, thinking. “I don’t know anywhere to stay other than Kokiri Forest. But maybe we could make somewhere,” she suggests. “To the east of the Meadow there’s a small lake, and good soil. You would have what you needed, and the forest would protect you.” 

“Can you take me there?” asks Link, turning to squint into the dawn light; Zelda’s absence must surely have been discovered by now.

She smiles. “Of course.”

“Then wait just a minute. I’ll be right back.”

He’s not going without Sheik.

  
***

Saria seems to sense he doesn’t want to answer questions; she’s always known him well – perhaps because she’s always known him. So she asks none when he returns with the unconscious boy and mounts Epona, Sheik in his arms still weighing very little. The blankets he ties at his back with the rest of his supplies; they’ll be useful later.

Saria leads him out of the Lost Meadow and into thicker woods, the underbrush speckled with patches of gold where the sun filters through the trees. The trees themselves are ancient, towering things whose branches stretch wider than houses and whose trunks ten men couldn’t encircle with their arms. The air is clean and fresh, the woods busy with birdsong and the soft shiver of leaves in the wind. 

The lake, when they reach it, is smaller than Lake Hylia. Its surface is clear and calm, its shore soft earth bordered by green grass. 

He dismounts, laying Sheik on the shore and unloading Epona, while Saria looks around for somewhere sheltered. She finds it in the trunk of a dead Deku tree, its interior wide and clear and smelling of rich earth and Deku nuts. Together she and Link clear out the cobwebs and the rotting wood from the floor, finding the walls intact and solid. There’s easily enough space for two Hylians to lie down, and Saria covers the floor with armfuls of soft grass and sweet-smelling herbs gathered from the underbrush. 

With the water and fish from the lake and berries from the forest, it should be enough to keep them for days – longer, if Sheik needs. 

Link puts down a make-shift bed and carries him to it, laying him in the shelter of the Deku tree. He makes his own bed beside Sheik, where he can be both warmth and a watchful presence. Here, they will finally be safe.

  
***

Watching Sheik sleep feels somehow like a betrayal, like a secret broken open and spilled out for the world to see. Now he can see the sharp line of Sheik’s jaw, the curve of his cheekbones and the soft arch of his eyelashes resting against pale skin. Link never knew he needed room in his heart to hold these things, but now he doubts he can ever let them go. He wants to respect Sheik’s privacy, but he wants also so badly to know him. His heart is heavy and aching with wanting – to see, to know, to touch. He’s only ever felt shades of this ache before, and only in Sheik’s quiet presence. For a long time he’s known it’s cause and effect; only more recently has he begun to wonder what the effect is.

When he finally builds up the courage to lay the back of his hand against Sheik’s forehead he finds that Sheik’s skin is warm to the touch, too warm for comfort. Link tears a strip of blanket and soaks it in the lake to lay over his forehead. His long straw-coloured bangs become damp with it, sticking to his temples and passing droplets of water down the side of his face; Link whisks them away with the side of his hand. He wonders as he does whether he will ever be this close to Sheik again, whether when he wakes he will ever dare to touch him as he does now. Hope beats like a butterfly in his chest, but he’s hoped for many things in his short life and few of them have come to pass.

  
***

Sheik wakes just as the sun is skimming over the trees, shadows lengthening towards dusk. Link knows he has because his breathing deepens and his eyelashes flutter, but for a long moment he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Sheik? It’s just me.”

“I know.” Sheik opens his eyes, wine-red in the darkness inside the Deku tree, and looks up. His lips twitch upwards at the corners as his eyes meet Link’s, and his face softens. “Thank you, Link.”

“You didn’t need me to rescue you. You could have –”

“Done it on my own?” asks Sheik, voice soft as rainfall. “No. I couldn’t. I owe you my life, the life you traded Zelda for. It wasn’t a trade I could make, but one I needed.” His eyes skim over the interior of the cavernous tree, the empty bundle of blankets beside him, then slant out towards the lake. “Where are we?”

“Near the Sacred Forest Meadow; Saria brought me here. She’ll keep our secret.”

“Even to a fellow sage?” asks Sheik, sounding more tired than wary.

Link nods seriously. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” says Sheik again. “Freedom – it isn’t a feeling I’ve ever known. I imagine it will take some getting used to.” He sighs, raising one trembling hand to regard the shaking fingers. “Will you stay with me?” he asks; Link can’t tell from his tone whether it’s a question or a request. The answer is the same either way.

“Yes.” 

Sheik lays his hand over Link’s, and his eyes soften as he smiles. “The destiny I was born to is lost to me, but perhaps together we can create a new one – one which will see Hyrule safe without the cost of anymore lives.”

Link squeezes Sheik’s fingers, emboldened by his touch. “We can,” he says – promises. They can do that, and so much more. “We can – we will.”

END


End file.
